


Black Ice

by fallen_woman, soltian



Category: Game of Thrones (TV), Mad Men
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soltian/pseuds/soltian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever-unfaithful Peter Campbell fumbles his betrayal of the wrong man - OR - I wrote things about Mad Men characters in Westeros and my co-author didn't stop me.</p><p>Chapter ONE - Me.<br/>Chapter TWO - fallen_woman<br/>Chapter THREE - Me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallen_woman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the sound of arrows](https://archiveofourown.org/works/325701) by [fallen_woman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman). 



"Do you know how to gut a fish, Peter?"

His wrists ache from the chains holding them above his head and against the crude slab that serves as a rack in this mudhole. His blue silk and velvet were hanging in tatters, offering him no cushion or warmth. But beyond the pain, the indignity is insufferable. He hadn't even been part of the battle. He had just come to watch, from a safe distance. What he thought was a safe distance. He hadn't underestimated Draper's tenacity, or strength, or tactical skill. Those had all been accounted for. He had misunderstood his honor - it turns out he didn't have any. He glares at the walls of the Northerner's crude tunnel and says nothing, licking dried blood from his lips. The scraping starts again, and Pete tries not to flinch. Don sharpens a blade slowly, anger tempering his ferocity, but not his care. And he is angry. Some of his best men died today. His brother died today. He was meant to die with them.

"You sink your blade right into its belly, break the sternum apart in one quick blow. Then you slit its throat."

Peter is not able to feign indifference when Don's calloused, bloody hand is on his bared abdomen, staining his skin with the memory of the battle and filling his nostrils with the stink of death. Damn. Damn fuck shit damn damn. He'll be one of those twisted, unrecognizable corpses, head lopped off, comically turgid. Don's scent pulses red blood to his cock, but he doesn't get hard. He's been hard for hours.

"Don't...please...I'll do anything...Don, it's still me-"

His voice dies at the undisguised venom in Don's eyes. The dagger is at his navel now, and even he's almost ready to give up. Almost.

Soft footsteps announce her entrance, and she materializes like mist at Don's shoulder. Her eyes are ice and he can think only one thing.

_She's going to watch me die._

No. Not her. Anyone but Margaret.

"I'm not going to kill you, Pete." The words fall heavy and reluctant from Don's lips, too angry to be false, too good to be true, and the knife doesn't sink in deep enough. "She'll have the final say."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the hero arrives to save her princess. This chapter is by fallen_woman.

The last time he set sight on Gertrude Vogel was five years ago, at some wretched court function. Scalding pink gown, hair woven with jewels. Childless then. Childless now.

Today she wore a rust-colored cloak and a gray dress, the only ornamentation an ermine pin -- her husband's crest -- at her throat. An elegant show of loyalty, especially considering that the men flanking her in the hall all carried her family's beaver insignia. A shame that the Dyckmans couldn't be bothered to send any soldiers to retrieve one of their own.

She knelt, touched a hand to her chest. He was surprised she hadn't brought a painter to capture the display of wifely supplication. "My deepest grief for your loss."

"Keep your griefs," he spat, gripping the arm of his chair. "They'll do my brother little good."

From this angle on the dais, he couldn't see Gertrude's eyes, just the spill of her hair over her cheeks as she knelt. "I do not claim to know the dictates of the battlefield," she said, white hands worrying the hem of her drab dress. "And if my husband has given offense, we apologize ten thousand times over, with action commensurate to your--"

"What if he's dead already?" he barked, and at this Gertrude's face jolted up, wide ripped-open eyes, and behind him, he could hear Margaret sucking in her breath. "What if he's been moldering for weeks, and I waited for you to trek all this way first?" The move of a born-bled Southerner: Calling for an open hearing, so she could shame him. He hadn't felt any alternate to rage, no shame no lust no grief even, since that axe had ripped open Adam's chest two months ago.

"My lord, I..." and this was something Margaret used to do under duress, flapping her mouth and moving her head like a blind suckling bird (his hand on her neck, bridling without hurting: _you have to learn stillness, Peggy._ )

"You have nothing I want," he said. "Stand up and go home. With your father's holdings, it will be easy enough for you to find a titled suitor."

Gertrude clambered up from the floor stiffly, drawing her cloak closer to her. "That is not an option for me," she whispered, and seven hells if that wasn't so delicate a slight against Elizabeth, Elizabeth of lacy heart and chilly veins, Elizabeth who fled in the middle of the night with a collapsed-face noble, Elizabeth who wrote in a letter by raven "I deserted my birthright and my children because I so despise you."

"I have a villa," Elizabeth said, and when he rubbed the flat of his hand against his brow, she was gone. "I have a villa," Gertrude said. "On The Arbour, near the royal conservatory."

"And?"

"Beautiful, mild weather. Good ocean air. My father owns the land, for miles." Now her whole body was vibrating, not trembling, and he should have known that this wasn't fear, that this was the give before a rich, salty joke, this was the hasp of a spoiled, sullied boy's breath before he came-- "It would suit your sister-in-law, Lady Anna."

( _Because she's dying, isn't she? And that's the one thing you could never give her -- sunshine._ )

"There are plenty of villas in the world." He couldn't bear to incline his head in Margaret's direction, in anyone's direction.

"None near the conservatory," Gertrude said, hands folded across her skirt-front. The ermine pin seemed to glow at her pretty, crushable neck. "Your sister-in-law's musical talents are much vaunted."

Forever revolved in his throat. _For Anna, always_. "You'll leave the city by nightfall tomorrow, or I will set my troops upon your retinue. I'll decide whether your husband accompanies on a horse or in a hearse."

"We thank you for your mercy," Gertrude said with a curtsey, no venom trace in her voice, and Don briefly remembered their one dance at the court ball five years ago, how her body bent to his even as her eyes and mind slid away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wolf of the North marks what is no longer her territory. (This one is by me again.)

The King of the North does not allow them to leave by daylight. At midnight, Peter is escorted out hooded, dressed in red, and Gertrude has to lean in close to make sure of his identity. He says nothing, but his red-rimmed eyes glow stark and wet in the darkness. He does not look pleased to see her. His gaze goes through her, past the trees, as if to find a point in space too distant for her to perceive. Time will heal all ills, she tells herself, her mother’s voice strong in her mind. She will never allow him this far North again - the next time Draper makes a move against her household, it will be she that blocks his path, with linen soaked in lamp oil in one hand and a knife to drain him in the other.

Suddenly, Margaret is there, and Gertrude gathers her husband to her chest. Slanderers in King’s Landing say the Northerners once bred with wolves, but in the presence of Margaret Olsen, she would be inclined to believe it. She circles the two, her hand steady on the hilt of a broadsword many knights would find too heavy to carry. Gertrude tilts her chin up, her arms wrap tight around Peter’s waist, and the silver and diamond on her finger catches starlight.

“Speak,” she demands. Was Draper really so sadistic as to fulfil his word, and then send an executioner before they could even clear his grounds? Her guards seem to share her unease, and Peter begins to shiver in her arms. Margaret finally stops circling, and looks Gertrude directly in the eye.

“I didn’t think you would come for him,” she finally says, and Gertrude can’t help but wince at her voice. It’s sand and ice and so unbecoming of a woman. She wants to soften the edges, give them dignity. “He didn’t think so, either.”

“Do not allow doubt to cloud your judgement a second time, Wolf Warrior. The integrity of our household-”

“Let it go, Trudy.” Peter had many tones to his voice for many different situations. Usually when he demanded something, he sounded like a petulant child, angry at her for holding back what he imagined to be rightfully his (most recently, the vacant space in her womb; she had bruised him during that discussion, and fretted afterwards, applying powder perfectly smooth to his jaw so that he would be able to face the court the next day.) This voice, rough and tired and angry, left no room for argument. “Do not speak to her. Do not look at her. I can’t stand it.”

Margaret’s grip tenses and she steps forward. Each man in the snowy circle tenses, and the moment extends. Gertrude tightens her hold on Peter’s waist, to be certain they could only be cleaved apart as one person. Then the moment passes, and Margaret removes her hand from her sword, and turns to take her leave, the prowl of an animal who has lost interest in its prey.

“I cut my teeth on your husband in my youth,” she says as she walks, “But I no longer have the taste for such tender meat. Enjoy him for as long as he can last you.”

Gertrude feels Peter sag in her arms, and realizes that his knees have gone out from under him. One of the men rushes forward to make sure she doesn’t collapse under his weight, and when she tilts his face up she can see that his eyes have spilled, but his focus is back, and he’s silently asking her, of all things, for forgiveness. She kisses his fevered brow and he smells of sulfur and ash.

“I’ve known all along,” she whispers to him, as she helps her guards carry him to the carriage and hides his red cloak in blue wool and ermine pelts. “And now we’re going home.”


End file.
